Friday, August 31, 2007

Friday 08/31 A.M. Quickie:On This Day A Year Ago...

Wow, I can't believe it was a year ago today that I filed the final edition (ever) of the Daily Quickie.

I'll have more to say about the past year (and the upcoming year) next week, but suffice to say it's been a wild ride this year. Thanks to everyone for reading, for commenting (well, most of you), for linking and for generally supporting the effort.

Again, more next week, but as the "official" anniversary of the end of the Daily Quickie and the start of danshanoff.com arrives over the next 24 hours, I offer my sincere thanks for what a great experience it has been. Now, on to today's top storylines...

College Football Opening Night: Four games involving ranked teams, four blowouts. 212-20 was the combined score, including the 73 that Louisville hung on MurrayState (didn't I say "70" yesterday?)

For all you Bootys and Hennes and Brennans or you Harts and Harvins and Slatons, the initial bar has been set.

(And that doesn't even consider the shutout that LSU's defense pitched, including 6 INTs. The Tigers' D is as good as advertised, making its showdown with Virginia Tech's D next week as good as it gets.)

College Football Opening Weekend! It's time to revive the Friday tradition of picks. Not many games in question, but of the weekend's three best games (listed in bold), I'm picking upsets in two of them.

Don't forget to submit your picks in both the College Football Pick 'Em and the College Football Challenge groups through the links on the right. Group name: Daily Quickie Readers.

(By the way, the New York Times' Pete Thamel and Co. are back with a college football blog, following up their excellent college hoops blog. Thamel's the best college football reporter in the country, and he and his colleagues put together a really entertaining addition to your daily CFB reads.)

USA Hoops: It's a new world, and Team USA is back. They routed nemesis and reigning world top-dog Argentina, which was my litmus test for this team's potential.

Who led the way? Kobe Bryant, who had 27 points and justified his place as the team's most valuable player – the biggest reason they'll win gold next year. Along the way, he's going to affirm his status as the world's greatest player.

(And I'm not a particularly big fan of Kobe's; he's simply reinventing himself this summer – and next – as the ultimate basketball player. The only thing he'll be missing? Any NBA success at the team level. Not with the Lakers, at least.)

Yankees sweep Red Sox: More important for their Wild Card chances than it was for their division chances. Stud: Robinson Cano.

Phillies sweep Mets: More important for their division chances than their Wild Card chances. Stud: Chase Utley.

NFL: The NFL is changing it's logo!It's not a radical re-design, but it is different. And I think I like it better, although purists might not agree with me, just because most don't like ANY change.

More: AJ Feeley broke his hand in the Eagles' loss last night, but he's not expected to miss playing time as McNabb's backup.

U.S. Open: I don't watch much tennis, but (as long as it's not conflicting with college football tomorrow) I'll have an eye on the Federer-Isner match tomorrow. Best of the tournament.

Beckham Watch: He might be done for the season, making his MLS rookie year the most expensive summer marketing gimmick of the decade.

NCAA will let the dead recruit enjoy a decent funeral courtesy of a college booster: Common sense must take a while to filter through.

PGA Drug-Testing: Will start as early as next year. And I predict you'll be shocked at how many (and who) gets busted.

Tyson Gay pulls off the double: He won the 100 and the 200 at Worlds. The sports Name to Know in 2008.

Sports Movies: Balls of Fury. The guy playing the lead is hilarious and relatively unknown. He's a poor man's Jack Black. I think this will be a sleeper hit. The premise is simply too good.

Happy Labor Day Weekend, for those of you enjoying three days off. I'll be posting all weekend, but catch you Tuesday for Year 2.

110 comments:

So why was ESPN hyping LSU v MSU as the start of the season...I was watching two other games before that one even started.

Are Red Sox fans freaking?

A full year. How about that Dan... Though a few of the old regular commenters from the Morning Quickie have moved on, a lot of us old-timers have stuck around. 12 months on internet time = 50 year marriage. Buy me something nice, Shanoff.

Congrats on the 1-year. As a 'gopher' reader (only occasionally popping up and chiming in with comments), you've become a regular part of my morning routine.

As for this weekend...

Watch out of the Western Michigan Broncos to cover at WVU. Mr. Rodriguez and the Moutaineers will have their hands full with Bill Cubit's undersized (yet fast) defense. They may not win, but the could give them a scare ala WMU @ Florida in 1999.

Will the Tigers continue to F!#$ up the AL Central? Simply... Yes.

And as my last weekend in the 20th Century approaches (My 42 in LCD with HD is installed next Thursday). I will enojy watching CFB in Black and White, oh Standard Definition TV.

Though, I am extremely pissed I am going to miss week 1 of the NFL. Some fucking big wig decided that me working that saturday and Sunday morning then traveling Sunday afternoon would be a good idea. Then I have to travel monday afternoon/evening. Hopefully I am done in time to make it to the bar for the Bengals/Ravens Monday night game. If so I will be happy since I am a Bengals fan.

Broncos running back Travis Henry has a lot of money. Enough that he has a $100,000 car. Enough that he's spent $146,000 on jewelry. But not enough to take care of his kids.

Of course, he has nine of them, by nine different women.

In fact, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Henry was about to be jailed because he couldn't come up with $9,800 he owed in child support, so he borrowed the money from his former team, the Titans, to pay it.

Henry, 28, has fathered nine children by nine women in at least four Southern states and has been ordered by various judges to provide child support for seven of them, according to court records involving one child living in DeKalb County.

DeKalb Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger this week ordered Henry to provide $3,000 a month for the Lithonia boy he fathered out of wedlock three years ago with Jameshia Beacham, now 29.

Henry isn't the most thrifty guy, according to court records, so the judge wants to ensure payment by establishing an unusual $250,000 trust that Henry must fund by next spring.

Although he signed a five-year, $22.5 million contract with the Broncos this off-season that guarantees him $12 million, Henry's lawyer says, "He doesn't have any money." The Big Lead calls Henry the new Shawn Kemp.

that brandon phillips play was one the best i've seen in a while and he has also had a multi hit game in seven straight. reds need to dump dunn and sign phillips to a nice extension, also the reds will have a chance to catch up with all the division games they left to play, unlikely but possible

I was so happy to be able to watch college football last night. It is so the best time of the year. Now I can't wait to watch Michigan scrimmage against Appy State tomorrow... err... wait... I won't be able to because my cable company doesn't carry the Big 10 network. Great.

Grats, Dan, on the 1 year. How many days did you miss posting an update?

F. the SEC. Other than the big 10 champ you list chumps from other conferences and the best from the SEC. And 8/10 the big 10 champ would win that game. I do give credit to Fl. for coming to play when it matterd. Big 10 needs to move the schedule back a few weeks so they don't have such a huge layoff in between games.

Anyways, I can't find any video footage of Brandon Phillips play last night. I turned from the game 10 seconds before that play and missed it.

1) Big congrats to Dan! 2) I am also looking for footage of that Brandon Phillips play last night, so if anyone spys a link somewhere, can you post it here? Thanks!3) Why oh why is no one talking about my Tribe?!? Six wins in a row, putting Detroit in the rear view mirror, and all anyone can talk about is the Yankees. Even the Angels get more national pub than we do, and they're on the West Coast. Sigh.

Also, is anyone watching the US Open? I stumbled on the Blake match last night, and my roomate and I stayed up to watch the whole thing, and it did not disappoint. What an awesome back and forth game, much better than the drubbings the CFB games had.

I don't know about Federer-Isner being the best match of the tournament. Isner shows a lot of promise, but let's not get carried away here--he really only popped up this summer, and he's playing a guy who has made it to nine straight Grand Slam finals.

Plus, the bar has already been set: it will be tough for the Fed/Isner match to beat the Blake/Santoro match from last night.

The Fed/Isner won't even come close to the Blake/Santoro one of last night, but watch for the hype to reach an insane high for Fed/Roddick.

sheldiz, I like Roddick too, but he really seems like the guy at the party that you really fucking hate. Don't get me wrong, I love his intensity and antics, but in real life, I imagine him being a douche.

Because the anniversary is on the weekend I'll say it now... Happy Anniversary Dan!

Upon reflection, it does seem like it has truly been a year, in a good way, and not like it has flown by too fast. I think that can be attributed to your style of writing ("quickie", daily) and the fact there was always something to blog and comment about with the visitors here. Daily makes a year feel robust, rather than just a few posts that pass the time.

i don't know that LSU was so great as that poor kid playing QB for Miss State was so awful. I mean him no disrespect but I don't think I've ever seen a D-1 QB throw more lame duck in my life. Congrats Shanoff on the year

I still have the link to the DQ on my home computer and it goes to the final quickie ever still. I spent the better part of my first four years of teaching reading the DQ and then last year getting online for the chats in the morning. Sucked when we hit daylight savings and the chat was on at 6am, but it was worth it. Then when you were gone, I was just pissed and then on a chat a while ago someone mentioned this website and thank God they did. I laugh at the number of blindly loyal fans (to their pro and college teams) we have - me included - I still remember my pick for MLB this year with the Twins and Brewers going wire to wire and I still think Notre Dame can get to a BCS bowl game. Thank you for continually getting up in the morning and reading the newspaper for me ;) I know I enjoy each reading and am extremely disappointed when there are no weekend updates.

Other note, my wife and I are now expecting our second child in as many years and need some names. Any suggestions? My wife is a southern girl, so anything that would sound good with a little twang is much appreciated.

Brian in Oxford said... even the WORST NFL games don't approach 73-10, though....even the Browns-Ravens game (as an example of records differential) is usually within 10 points in the 4th quarter.

No, but have you ever watched an NFL preseason game?

What about a game that does suck (i.e. Texans-Jags) during the 4:15 slot on Sunday and not be able to switch to another (and potentially better) game without throwing 300+ bones and getting the dish?

College does not have preseason, so many teams elect to play warmup games,and yes you will get some shitty games. However, I have never had an NFL game where I didn't have a rooting interest and I was openly celebrating, but I can name at least 4 or 5 in college last year.

If Team USA brought their A-team and Argentina lost 91-76 (US didn't even reach 100 and they played the whole game), how much credibility was that win without starters of Ginobili, Nocioni, and Sanchez, moreover bench players in Olberto and Hermann?

US should advance into the Olympics because Puerto Rico is without Jose Ortiz (played for OSU long, long time ago). Arroyo and Ayuso are the only scorers.

It should be fun tomorrow, as the previous meeting between Brazil and Argentina went into OT.

Can I just say that the Argentine fans are the best? I've went to Puerto Rico for the FIBA tourney and, now, Las Vegas and they are consistently loud with their many different chants. It makes our only "U - S - A" chant weak.

toddthesecond~ I'll talk Tribe with you! I feel asleep when they went up 5-4 so I saved myself a couple of heart attacks. Freakin' Borowski is going to KILL me! I also thank the Mariners' bullpen for walking in the winning run...did they really think they were going to win the make-up game that should have been finished!!?Hopefully the can sweep the lowly White Sox this weekend and put a real nice gap between them and the Tigers.

Happy Anniversary, Dan! I was never a chatter at the DQ since I was blocked from that part of the site, but I ALWAYS read when I ate my lunch.

I hate the Yank-mes. Why couldn't Boston win ONE game!?

I guess there are no comments on the Browns game since Chicago barely threw in their starters. I am hoping the Fudgies come out 2-2 after their first 4 games....yikes! Pitt, Cincy, Oakland and Baltimore to start off the season.

geoff's comment reminded me that I have to call the toll-free # I saw on TV last night. Standard cable companies not offering the Big 10 Network is absolute bullshit. I hate Time Warner.

Happy Anniversary Dan! Thank you for continuing to write for us make the work day so much better! Here's to many more!

@Rev-Saw the play & it was SWEET. Reds need to keep him as long as possible; he has to be one of the best 2B in MLB. And why couldn't they play like this all year?

@toddthesecond & jen-maybe the reason the Tribe is getting no love is because they're in Cleveland! (Sorry, had to say it or my Bengals fandom might get revoked!:) And besides my dad likes all Cleveland teams and he's OK)

Congrats on your paper anniversary Dan. Those CFB games last night were boring as hell. At least the first quarter of the LSU game was close. The games were so boring that I had to listen to the Bucs/Texans game on the internet. The Bucs are going to suck so bad this year. They lose Parris Warren last night for the season and I thought he could have been good even though some people thought he would be getting cut. They need to try to trade Chris Simms for some offensive weapons. I don't see how some people are thinking the Bucs could be a sleeper this year.

It has got to suck to be an orioles fan. I mean cmon you got swept by the Rays. The one good thing is that we are really hot right now and we have the Yankees and the Sox coming up. I could totally see us winning 2 games in each series.

From what I saw I didn't think LSU was as good as people are making them out to be. Yeah the defense is solid but the offense isn't all that special. VT should be able to handle them. Now what worries me is when UF plays them. If Trautwein is out like we all think he is and we have a freshman in his place that defense might be able to stop us. Then again MSU is probably the worst team in the SEC so lets see how LSU does against a team with some real talent.

I can't wait to see how Tebow looks throwing the ball against Western KY. I think the majority of the Gator Nation is holding their breath to see how he looks in the pocket.

Congrats Dan. I've been a long time reader of the DQ and have enjoyed your transition to the blogosphere. Keep up the good work!

One comment on the World Track and Field Championships - its too bad all of our attention is consumed by the start of the football season and the divisional races in baseball. There have been some really great American story lines this year. Although Gay and Wariner are capturing most of the attention, how about Bernard Lagat winning the 1500m, ending a 99 year US drought. American middle distance runners are having a great year, male and female.

Oh yeah I think out thoughts should go out to Jameer Nelson of the Magic. Seems his dad just up and disappeared yesterday and they think he might have fallen into some river and drowned while working as a marine welder.

I can't possibly make it out to the bar/restaraunt scene earlier enough to get a seat to watch the Ohio State Game. Having a son under the age of 1 limits my ability to getting out to watch games. And since I only have him on weekends, what is a man gonna do?

You know I used to like to read the Sports guy until his photo essay on the sox/rays series. Yea we aren't all that great of a team and maybe we have a fairly antiseptic feeling stadium but he just dogged us so bad that I have been feeling pretty down since reading his article. He could have at least checked some of his facts first. That dudes a cockgoblin.

@sheik-my Hilltoppers are going to take your Gators down...OK, maybe not but hey its our first game in Div. 1-A (or Bowl div. or whatever the fuck they're calling it now) and we're pretty stoked. Go Big Red! :)

Broncos running back Travis Henry has a lot of money. Enough that he has a $100,000 car. Enough that he's spent $146,000 on jewelry. But not enough to take care of his kids.

Of course, he has nine of them, by nine different women.

In fact, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Henry was about to be jailed because he couldn't come up with $9,800 he owed in child support, so he borrowed the money from his former team, the Titans, to pay it.

Henry, 28, has fathered nine children by nine women in at least four Southern states and has been ordered by various judges to provide child support for seven of them, according to court records involving one child living in DeKalb County.

DeKalb Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger this week ordered Henry to provide $3,000 a month for the Lithonia boy he fathered out of wedlock three years ago with Jameshia Beacham, now 29.

Henry isn't the most thrifty guy, according to court records, so the judge wants to ensure payment by establishing an unusual $250,000 trust that Henry must fund by next spring.

Although he signed a five-year, $22.5 million contract with the Broncos this off-season that guarantees him $12 million, Henry's lawyer says, "He doesn't have any money." The Big Lead calls Henry the new Shawn Kemp.----------------------------

Other note, my wife and I are now expecting our second child in as many years and need some names. Any suggestions? My wife is a southern girl, so anything that would sound good with a little twang is much appreciated. ----------------Billy RaeBilly JoeBilly BobSteve

I saw Mike Bell at the grocery store too...my wife told me that I couldn't go talk to him --------now you are just lying. much like chuck norris, mike bell does not go the grocery store - the grocery store comes to mike bell.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.